Bear garlic and spring onions, garden herbs, spring herbs, and granulated bouillon; Grandma’s secret salad spices have finally been made public. Fourteen-year-old Valentin Krapf has just released his cookbook for kids, under the title Cooking is Cool.
‘Kids are lazy, and many of them call on their help to make them sandwiches when the kitchen is one metre away!’ claims an indignant Krapf. The book has a lofty goal: to become a key ingredient in the Abu Dhabi Master Plan 2030, by encouraging children to be more active, more involved, and to take responsibility for their own health, because lazy kids can’t be bothered to make a brighter future.
‘Children in Germany and the UAE are the same,’ says the young chef, who proceeds to lecture us on childhood obesity and the dangers of junk food. ‘You have so many goodies here; do you know that mangos cost five euros in Germany? Here they cost less than a dirham.’ And Valentin’s fruit salad recipe, entitled Mangos, mangos, mangos, makes full use of our city’s supply of cheap produce.
Cooking is Cool encourages kids to prepare snacks that replace crisps, fruit smoothies that replace ice cream, and quick salads with grilled meat and chicken instead of fried foods. But the book is only the beginning, with the help of his mother – who insists on being called Umm Valentin – the teen entrepreneur plans to hold multiple cooking classes for kids, and raise awareness both in Germany and the UAE: ‘The UAE is my second home, and I care about my friends here a lot,’ he assures us.
Valentin isn’t disillusioned, he doesn’t think his book will change kids overnight, but he does hope it will teach them there is an alternative to living an unhealthy lifestyle, ‘We think showing them that it can be done is a great start, because some kids just don’t know anything else; we want them to experiment,’ says Umm Valentin, who doubles as her son’s agent, presenter and biggest fan, despite the cooking bug’s origins on the father’s side of the family.
The young chef even taught us – along with an adoring bunch of kids from the Raha International School – how to make his signature salad, Salad a la Valentin. Ripped up greens (throw the dark stuff away!), thinly-sliced tomatoes, cucumber, basil, oregano and rosemary, along with Grandma’s herb blend. Dress with oil and vinegar, and get several children to hand-toss it.
And when some of the children started whispering their ice cream demands to the teachers, Valentin quickly countered with a round of Bananen Milchshake, which seemed to curb the tide.
Cooking is Cool is currently looking for a publisher. For more information, visit www.office-for-german-uae-relations.de
